


The Royal Apartments

by WendyNerd



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jon is king, Reunion, Unbeta'd, bookverse, renovation porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:49:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WendyNerd/pseuds/WendyNerd
Summary: A year into his unexpected reign and with the (partial) completion of his predecessor's mass-renovation of the Red Keep, King Jon welcomes his queen-to-be to the capital at last and has her inspect her new living quarters.





	The Royal Apartments

**Author's Note:**

> Note sure where this came from, but I am glad it came nonetheless.

“Not everything is finished yet, of course. The queen— I mean, Queen Daenerys—” Lady Marya blushes. Sansa tears her eyes from the curtains— silver-blue satin dotted with snowflake lace appliques — to the apple-cheeked older woman.

“—It’s alright, you know,” Sansa says gently, “The wedding is still weeks away. Her Grace is and was still ‘the queen’ until then.”

Jon frowns slightly when she says this, but doesn’t argue. How can he? Daenerys can still be felt throughout King’s Landing, and not just because the court and city still has a week left in its year-long mourning period.

These chambers are a perfect example. Last time Sansa had been in these rooms, it was all shining crimson, glittering gold, russet walls, and ruby-studded finery. The wealth and the daughter of Casterly Rock. Not so now.

The late ruler had been an unquenchably active and adventurous sort — the personality that had made her a hero, conqueror, and dragon rider. A woman with such a lust for action rose enough eyebrows on a normal day, but things changed entirely when she finally fell pregnant. During her prior, unsuccessful pregnancies, she’d kept riding both horses and dragons. But after nearly a decade of stillbirths and miscarriages, she’d finally adhered to the wishes of the maesters and midwives, kept off the saddle and to the castle, even going into a confinement of sorts.

By all accounts, it drove Daenerys nearly mad with boredom, and she complained of feeling like a prisoner. To distract herself and, possibly, to keep herself convinced of her power by altering the “prison” around her, she moved her confinement to Dragonstone and undertook a massive remodeling and renovation of the Red Keep. Admittedly, the palace was in need of alterations and repairs, but Daenerys was practically rebuilding the royal seat.

Half of the palace’s walls are still lined with bars and scaffolding, and at the time of her death, half were actually torn down. Jon described it as “Harrenhal, dyed scarlet” in his first letter home. Maegor’s Holdfast hadn’t been spared, certainly. The only chamber of the palace that wasn’t touched was the throne room (but then, it had been renovated to replace the Lannister and Baratheon sigils with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen years prior anyways).

All of it certainly included these rooms: the ones that had been occupied by royal consorts since Good Queen Alysanne. One of the quirks of Daenerys’s massive remodeling was ordering that every door be painted bright scarlet with black, white, or gold frames for every outer side, and that all the interior walls be painted and/or paneled with any color but red to make the doors stand out. The Red Keep, everyone joked, became a lot less red.

Prince Aegon, Daenerys’s dragonseed consort, had asked that his rooms be paneled with pure, white alabaster with gold moldings. Even the queen had bristled at such extravagance, and only relented after months of argument. When she died in childbirth, only half the proper amount of alabaster had arrived from the suppliers, and both Jon and Lord Tyrion were quick to both cancel the rest of the orders for the Prince Consort’s apartments and “persuade” him to “retire” to his “Cousin” Princess Arianne’s estate of the Water Gardens with a generous pension.

When Jon took the throne, though, nearly the whole Red Keep, including most of the royal apartments, were uninhabitable and renovations had to continue. He had traveled south intending to fulfill the quick obligation of witnessing the birth of and swearing the proper oaths to the infant who would replace him as heir to the Iron Throne and found himself chained not only to the fate of monarchy, but the massive reconstruction of the royal seat his aunt had begun.

Sansa suspects that one of the reasons Jon insisted on such a long mourning period for his predecessor was to have an excuse to keep the royal court as frugal as possible while he reconstructed most of the Red Keep.

Not that Sansa exactly resents Daenerys for her architectural mania. She’s spent the last decade as Rickon’s regent, tasked with, among other things, rebuilding and restoring her ancestral home in the wake of the wars and winter. Despite the difficulty of the undertaking, Sansa herself had discovered the appeal of such work and developed a genuine passion for it. While she never became a member of the cult of the Mother of Dragons, she is sympathetic to Daenerys’s interest here. It also doesn’t hurt that Sansa herself possesses so many bad memories of this place as it was before. A literal change of scenery makes the transition easier.

Though Jon had canceled all annual festivals and banquets in King’s Landing for a year and insisted his courtier keep modest staff and dine on simple, modest meals, there was one thing he didn’t take a miser’s approach to: the care and comfort of his queen-to-be.

His aunt, though reasonable in many ways, always viewed both her nephew and his relations (the progeny of the very people who put Robert the Usurper on her father’s throne) as threats. She’d managed to neutralize her “other nephew”, “Aegon”, by marrying him, but Jon refused to become her second consort. Though she was willing to let him settle with his Stark cousins under the guise of serving as Rickon’s co-regent with Sansa, she downright refused to grant Jon and Sansa permission to wed. Or, rather, she refused to let them marry until after she’d replaced Jon with a child of her own.

Possessing absolutely no interest in the Iron Throne, both Jon and Sansa anticipated the birth of Daenerys’s first child nearly as much as the queen herself. The two fell passionately in love during the first year of the War of the Dawn. A prince or princess would give them the chance to finally, at long last, start the lives and family they’d yearned for since they were children. So when Jon departed for the South during Daenerys’s seventh month, it was with utter delight over the promises of a cozy domestic future in their childhood home.

The thing about Sansa’s lover is that he doesn’t take anything for granted anymore. Despite limitless, lofty opportunities to marry well, she’s never once considered forsaking Jon for them. Jon told her over the years that she was not bound to him, and, as the years got longer, even encouraged her to give up and pursue the life she deserved. At various points since she left King’s Landing, Sansa’s had chances to become the Lady of the Vale, Lady of Highgarden, Lady of Casterly Rock, Lady of the Stormlands, a princess of Dorne, Lady of Hightower, Horn Hill, Harrenhal, Seagard, Greywater Watch, Rosby, Lannisport, Darry, Starfall, and Driftmark. Even high-ranking merchant princes and lords from the Free Cities sent proposals. She preferred to wait for Jon.

“Any life with you, married or not, is more appealing than loftiest match in the world,” she told him.

Ironically, though, Jon becoming the loftiest match in the world was the thing that nearly caused her to reconsider (if only for half a second). If there was one thing she did not want, it was everything she’d dreamed of when she was eleven. She does not want a crown, does not want to be here, does not want to operate within the court that killed her father.

Sansa may never have loved Daenerys Targaryen, but when word came that the queen had died, she’d crumpled to the floor in tears. Her dreams died with the Mother of Dragons.

Of course, she made herself alter her dreams almost immediately. And though she was still determined to remain at Winterfell as Rickon’s regent until he reached his sixteenth Name Day, one of her first actions was to write to Jon assuring him of her continued devotion.

Jon hasn’t taken that lightly. And indeed, as his reign progressed, he seemed to become even more enamoured of her. During their separation, their letters were lengthy and passionate, and he made no secret of how much he relied on both her advice and the prospect of their eventual marriage.

He also insisted to Sansa that she could and would have every luxury and comfort her heart might desire. “I insist on only one thing as both your king and future husband,” he’d written, “And that is that you go a single moment unpampered for the rest of your life. Whatever you want, you are not to hesitate to ask for. No jewel is too large, no silk is too fine, that you cannot have it.”

It amused them both, though Jon turned out to be surprisingly sincere about this. One of his first acts as king was declaring that he’d wed Sansa Stark in a year’s time, and he sent a raven to every Keep in Westeros so everyone knew. A few weeks following Daenerys’s death, a line of carts carrying fine furs, fabric, and lemons arrived at Winterfell’s gates. Two months later, a group of jewelers and goldsmiths arrived with a cart containing assort precious stones and metals to craft her a suite of jewelry customized to her preferences.

When Sansa asked for copies of Daenerys’s plans for the Red Keep, Jon didn’t hesitate to send her the blueprints and grant her request to help oversee the rest of the renovations. Since, she’s corresponded with every person involved with remodeling the Red Keep and guided it all.

Sansa’s made many, more prudent, less costly changes to her predecessor’s plans, but she’s done her best to preserve some things from the Dragon Queen’s work. The lemon tree orchard outside the royal apartments, for instance, and all the red doors.

Half of Aegon’s alabaster had arrived when Daenerys passed, and was bought and paid for (and, as the suppliers had happily reminded the royal household, was non-refundable). Sansa cancelled the other half, but decided to use the panels they had. The lower half of the walls of her new apartments are paneled with burnished walnut while the upper half bears the alabaster paneling. Instead of gold moldings, however, she’s settled for more wood ornately carved and accented with silver paint, and had a few tapestries and paintings from the royal collection and home hung.

The furniture is walnut as well, richly carved, but no precious metal moldings. The draperies — the inlaid cushions, the curtains, the tablecloths, and the pillows — are fine linen, mostly ivory, some grey. Some of the pillow covers she embroidered herself, with direwolves, snowflakes, and interlocking initials of J and S in silver, white, icy blue, and dove-grey.

The copper-colored walls, plush scarlet samites, and gold-plated, jewel-studded furniture and ornaments are gone. The ruby-eyed lions that seemed to roar at her from every corner, cup, candlestick, and armrest, have been banished.

Despite all the changes she’s ordered, though, she still sees the rooms that once belonged to Cersei Lannister. This is still the solar the maids brought her too after her first flowering. That’s still the archway the queen had leaned against as she scoffed at Sansa’s dreams of magic. This is still the floor Sansa had stared at as she was ushered in, wrapped in that borrowed robe, half expecting to find Joffrey waiting for her to force his son into her. These are still the same high ceilings that caused Cersei’s cruel laughter to echo.

If the Dragon Queen hadn’t acquired such an obsession with changing the palace, there would probably be far more reminders, though.

Jon watches her anxiously. When Sansa asked to be given the responsibility of guiding the remodeling of the palace, his only condition had been that the first thing she tackled was designing her ideal living quarters. But, granted, only so much could be communicated through letters, sketches, and sample selections.

He doesn’t want her to simply tell him whatever she thinks he wants to hear. Jon knows how to tell the difference between that and sincere approval. He will only be satisfied with the latter. Sansa looks into his eyes and her heart aches. He appears both anxious and exhausted.

As far as he’s come, she thinks, part of him is still that bastard boy eager to prove himself. These rooms mean far more to him than they do to her. Jon knows she’d happily live in a hut made of twigs and mud with him — that in some ways, she’d prefer that to this. She doesn’t want to be queen. She doesn’t want to be back. And she doesn’t have to be. This is a sacrifice for both of them, one she is under no obligation to make.

Jon has to be king, and if he has to be king, he wants to make sure his lady love is provided every comfort and delight to ease the difficulty of returning to her former prison. He wants to give her everything her disapproving mother could have wanted for her. He wants to make this her home, because if it’s hers, it can be his. He’s been waiting over a year for her smiles.

True smiles, not polite ones.

So Sansa crosses the solar and inspects things as her staff files into unpack her luggage. She evaluates the carvings of the wood, the plushness of the pillows and the sofa. She takes the curtains in hand to look at the details of the lace snowflakes against the icy satin. She runs her hand along the new mantle and across the surface of the dining table.

As she expected, everything is perfect, gorgeous, intricate, sturdy, lovely. Literally beyond complaint or doubt. But a verdict based on faith would not satisfy Jon. Sansa pauses at a window to view the deck and the lemon tree orchard (the one Daenerys wanted so badly) beyond. Her heart flutters. Reluctantly, she turns away to enter the bedchamber.

The bed is so beautiful she might swear it is enchanted. The curtains are belted to the four posters with silver chord and the silk of the canopy is so fine that it appears almost liquid. The headboard is painted with a scene of the Winterfell godswood. Sansa cannot resist running her hand along the white satin bedspread, embroidered with silver direwolves running along the edge and, at the center of the cloth, silver thread forming an S wrapped about a J.

The dressing table, end tables, and bureau are weirwood, with stained glass scarlet leaves framing the mirror and forming the handles of the drawers and doors. A marble washstand sits in a corner, accented with silver. The door to the balcony has a knob that looks like a weirwood leaf. In a fair corner, there is a platform with an immense marble tub. When Sansa sees this, she looks at Jon in surprise. She hadn’t ordered such a thing. He blushes.

“Daenerys and Aegon were already having it built. By the time I got here, it would have cost more to remove than to complete. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

There’s a dressing chamber as well, with an immense, three-way looking glass, a tailoring platform, special shelves and cases built into the walls, and hooks and racks for gowns and shoes. Certain cabinets are padlocked, clearly intended for jewelry. When her maids see it all, they squeal with delight, thrilled at using it all in their duties, and begin opening every unlocked door and cabinet.

Overcome, Sansa interrupts them. “Lara, Melia, Morgan, Lady Marya… I hope you don’t mind, but would you focus on assembling things in the other chambers for now? I’d like to speak to the king alone.”

The other women all exchange knowing glances and file out. Sansa goes to shut the door behind them, then leans back against it, trying to regain her breath.

“…Well?”

She looks up at him. “Please, by the Old Gods and New, tell me that most of this was either already here or Daenerys’s fault.”

Jon holds a hand to his heart. “I swear it. Nearly everything in this room was either put in by Maegor, or came from Daenerys’s rooms. Some of the shelves here were literally torn from the walls of my rooms and re-installed here. And the tub… it’s modeled on the baths in the eastern manses that Daenerys used to stay in. The mirror has been here since Good Queen Alysanne. The bed, dressing table, and washstand were brought in from the Maidenvault and repainted and molded. The upholstery, drapes, and linens are all new, of course. And the mattress. But I promise that we kept to the budget you dictated. It’s not half as expensive as it looks. You don’t have to hate either of us. The new armoury cost five times as much.”

“Jon, if I find out you’re lying—”

“—Ask Tyrion to show you the ledgers if you want!”

She smiles, relieved. Tyrion would know better than to show her false ones, even if Jon ordered it. Her former husband has been terrified of her ever since he learned about what happened to Littlefinger.

Not even her future husband is as frightened of Sansa as her former one.

“…So?”

She answers him by throwing herself into his arms and peppering his face and neck with kisses. “It looks like a literal enchanted fairy-world!”

He laughs, wrapping his arms about her, lifting her and twirling her around. “Well, you look like an enchanted fairy.”

Sansa snorts. “Stop it. I’m still in my travel-clothes! I’m all sweaty and dusty!”

“Sweaty, dusty, and still beautiful beyond words. I’ve seen you in old, patched-up wool,” he reminds her, “With your hair matted about your scalp and your skin reddened by the cold and wind, skinny as a rail, lips chapped and dark circles about your eyes—”

“—Don’t remind me!” She shudders at the thought of the war years. Even she lacked the time or energy to maintain a ladylike appearance back then.

“—And I still couldn’t look away, you were so beautiful. And you’ve only grown lovelier with each passing day. When I first saw you come through the city gates today I nearly fell off of my saddle.” He runs his fingers through her hair and groans. “I’ve been waiting to do that for over a year. Along with a thousand other things. Like this…”

His mouth seizes hers. Their lips part and their tongues dance together. He tastes even better than she remembers. He’d kissed her when they greeted each other, but it had been a chaste thing, appropriate viewing for the crowds that surrounded them. This, though, is decidedly not. Deliciously not.

For a short while, within the walls of Maegor’s Holdfast, Jon does what a thousand beautiful rooms cannot do and brings her home again.

They only part when their lungs demand it. Sansa rests her cheek upon his shoulder, inhaling his scent as she regains her breath. “My Love…”

“What, Sweetling?” He gasps.

“As wonderful as my new bed is, I don’t think I can stand to sleep in it alone.”

She feels his posture shift and he pushes her back gently so their eyes meet, his gaze searching.

“But we’re not…”

In all these years, they still haven’t taken this step. But Sansa’s done. She’s sick of waiting. She spent countless lonely nights in this place. No more. Gently, she cups his cheek. “At this point, it’s just a matter of a few words and a big, stupid party mostly attended by strangers. It was one thing when we were waiting for your aunt, and a mistake could result in a rain of dragon fire. It was one thing when we had to keep Rickon safe and so much was still uncertain. But now nearly everything has been decided for us and we can’t go back. You’re king. And maybe I’m not quite queen yet—-”

His grip on her shoulder tightens. “You are as far as I’m concerned!”

She grins. “Then what is stopping us. You’ve literally made our bed. So let’s lie in it. Besides, according to the plans you sent me…”

Sansa pulls away and makes her way to one of the bigger closets. She opens it, runs her hand along the back wall, smiles when she feels the latch, and turns to Jon as the hidden door swings open. “Leads right to the King’s study. Jaehaerys and Alysanne liked their privacy. I kept that in mind when I designed your rooms, too.”

Jon groans again. “Seven fucking HELLS I’ve missed you!”


End file.
